Peace was the motto of the 9th edition of the Summer University of the Party of the European Left (EL) in Germany, the place chosen for this international meeting, on the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of the World War I and the 75^th of World War II. In fact, peace is also one of the six axes of the programmatic platform adopted at the IV EL Congress last December. In that Congress, the Party of the European Left reaffirmed its compromise with the defence of peace and political dialogue against violence and military coercion: “We defend internationalism, contrary to imperialism, which creates divisions between countries and peoples in an artificial way”.

In that line of work the EL organized the seminar “1914-2014: 100 years after World War I: Challenges for internationalism” in its second day of its Summer University. The deputy of DIE LINKE, Heike Hänsel, told that Germany, which started two world wars, should defend peace more actively. But instead of that, what the German Government is doing is to increase its military intervention and now, with the social democracy in the Great Coalition, is doing it more than ever, said the German, who explained that her country now has more than 5.000 troops participating in 30 missions around the world.

Today, the world is full of conflicts and there is an escalation of militarism which threatens with the possibility of a Third World War. And the way to prevent this, explained Heinz Hillebrand, head of training department in DIE LINKE is internationalism, “to avoid what happened in 1914, when there was a division of the left and nationalism imposed against internationalism”.

The globalization of capitalism

The German leader argued that along with the danger of nationalism, is the pitfall of the globalized capitalism and the growing military role the European Union is playing, "which is most evident in the crisis in Ukraine, where capitalism collaborates with fascism, when they believe they have to do so in order to achieve their interests". He also denounced that Israel is using land, sea and air attacks over Gaza to test new weapons.

The vice-president of DIE LINKE, Tobias Pflüger, said that the globalization of capitalism knows no boundaries at all and acts with a policy of destabilization in Latin America, recalling the coup in Honduras and Paraguay and the attempt to put an end to the Bolivarian process in Venezuela. He also suggested that rather than analyze the conflict itself, "we must analyze the actors in the conflict".

The serious problem, as all the participants agreed, is that in this context the European Union plays a more and more imperialist roll and a position of subordination to the United States, while at the same time NATO launches a new expansionist politics of rearming and wants to raise up to 2 % of the GDP the quota that every single member country must pay to the organization (now Germany is providing a 1,3 %). In this situation, Pflüger emphatically criticized "the error of being equidistant in conflicts" and at the same time the German deputy stressed that the anti-Semitism discussions has become “counter-productive when prevents us to take a position” in issues such as Gaza.

The world's largest terrorist organization

Maite Mola, vice-president of the Party of the European Left, harshly lashed out at NATO, which she described as being "the world's largest terrorist organization" and complained that Spain, with 6 million unemployed and 32% of children under 16 with problems to feed because they are in poverty, is handing over to NATO 1% of its GDP.

She also charged against the absolute impunity of capitalism and imperialism that attack wherever they have economic and financial interests, a kind of capitalism, which, according to Maite Mola, “would have no qualms about going into a Third World War to improve their profits”.

The scenario would be different if the European Union had its own foreign policy "rather than do what United States tells us to do and seeking to rearm it-self with the purchase of more military equipment", argued Mola.

The defence for peace must materialize

In the propositional part, the vice-president of the EL called for peace to become the number one point on the agenda of the EL, "but it should be more developed and specified, because if it is not so, it will be no useful". And as an example of that called for creation of a platform for peace at the European, national and world levels. She also raised the need “of discussing if we're up for the dissolution of NATO".

To explain the conflict in Ukraine, the EL Summer University invited Sergej Kiritschuk, leader of the Ukrainian movement Borotba. The activist denounced that "Ukraine is been used as a battlefield for the confrontation of the imperialist forces". He added that United States are interfering and breaking all attempts to resolve the conflict, and Russia, on the other side, also has its own interests in the conflict.

The activist of Borotba explained that Maidan was an anti-communist movement from the beginning, which had no democratic elements, and that the people who were there did not want a Social Europe. What was behind was the interest of the oligarchs to sign the treaty with the European Union. But 50% of the population were against that treaty. They have seen that countries such as Romania impoverished, losing their industry, among other things, since the moment its entry into the European Union began.

The Ukrainians from the East and South are peaceful, explained Sergej. What is happening is that "we cannot return to being a colony by our integration in the European Union". He said that the Treaty was made to satisfy the interests of EU and the aggressive expansion of NATO, but not for the Ukrainians, who fear losing their industry and its high-tech". And after all the explanation, he made a demand for ending the conflict: "we need to tell the United States to stop its aggression and also that we want peace".

The debate on Ukraine continued in the afternoon, focusing on the role of the left forces in the country and the opportunity of international solidarity. The University also discussed on imperialism attack in Latin America and alternative policies with new ways to govern themselves without the influence of the United States. The third focus of big international conflicts was the revolutions and counter-revolutions of the so-called “Arab Springs”, and the left answers for the conflict in Gaza and Israel.

Picture: From left to right:

DIE LINKE deputy, Heike Hänsel; DIE LINKE vice-president,Tobias Pflüger;  Heinz Hillebrand, head of training department in DIE LINKE; Maite Mola, vice-president of the Party of the European Left; and Sergej Kiritschuk, leader of the Ukrainian Movement Borotba